ALABAMA

Charlotte Proctor

[Charlotte & I were lucky enough to have One Who Was There
reviewing our humble efforts at fan history. Hank Reinhardt
informs me that it was he who brought the Light of Fandom to
Benighted Birmingham (caps his) in 1966 when he moved there from
Atlanta. Attempts at forming a club based at Gene Crutcher's
bookstore came to nothing much, Reinhardt's introduction of the
SCA to the South into something very much indeed. Reinhardt also
admits to introducing Meade Frierson III to fandom.

Nevertheless, there was some fanac from out of B'ham in the late
'60s. (For this next bit I am indebted to Richard Lynch's outline
of fan history in the 1960s, where I lifted it.) In 1969
Reinhardt organized the Al Andrews Typewriter Fund, raising money
through the mail and at the '69 DSC and Worldcon to buy Andrews
an electrical typewriter, as his muscular dystrophy had
progressed to the point that he was no longer able to use his
manual typewriter. The fund succeeded in its goal, and Andrews
returned to SFPA in November of 1969, only to die a few months
later in early 1970. Reinhardt moved back to Atlanta in
1976.--TKFW]

Birmingham fandom coalesced in the 1970s when Meade and Penny
Frierson began to notice other Birminghamians (Wade Gilbreath,
Frank Love, Adrian Washburn and Charlotte Proctor) at regional
conventions. At Meade's behest, Penny, Wade and Frank bid for the
1977 DeepSouthCon. Their guests were Michael Bishop and Charles
Brown. Shortly thereafter, Meade said, "Why don't you guys form a
club?" So we did. The first meetings of the Birmingham Science
Fiction Club were at the Homewood Public Library, which was
subsequently sold--but we don't think BSFC meeting there had
anything to do with it.

Wade, as first club President, thought the Club should, "Do"
something. So, in 1978 Wade began to publish BSFC's clubzine,
Anvil. The next year, Jim
Gilpatrick took over both jobs. Other club presidents have been
Jim Cobb, Debbie Rowan and Julie Wall.

In 1981, Jim chaired BSFC's next DSC, with Bob Shaw, Jerry Page
and Hank Reinhardt as guests. This was the first of Bob Shaw's
many Southern fannish appearances. In 1982, Charlotte graduated
from Chief Typoist to Editor in Chief of
Anvil, a position she held
until burnout in 1993. Julie Wall, back from her exile in
Virginia, co-edited the last few issues.

In the mid 1980s, in response to membership problems and the
Homewood Library shutting down, the club met in private for
several years. This was a hotly debated move, with Adrian
championing the rights of the individual and Charlotte the rights
of the group. By the 1990s, meetings moved to the Southside
Public Library, which was subsequently torn down, but we don't
think BSFC meeting there had anything to do with it.

Since BSFC doesn't have the energy to throw the type of annual
convention as its brethren in Huntsville and Chattanooga do, we
began having annual summer parties at small hotels. Relaxacons,
if you will. The hotel we liked best, not a chain, doesn't
understand Science Fiction, fandom, nor conventions. They do,
however, understand and host a lot of Family Reunions. Linda
Riley exclaimed, "Jophan Family Reunion!" A quick note to BoSh
gained us permission to use the Jophan name. The hotel doesn't
have a clue and when we check in they say, "Your family is in the
upper courtyard." Our guest "Relative of Honor" is always a
fan--Joe Celko, Ken Moore and Greg Turkich, to name a few.

As of March 1996, the Southside Public Library is BSFC's new
home--on the corner of 11th Avenue
South and 19th Street in Birmingham's
historic Southside neighborhood. Visitors welcome. Current
officers: President Merlin Odom, Treasurer Debbie Rowan. Annual
dues are $15 per person, or $20 per family. One must attend at
least three meetings before joining. Mailing address: P.O. Box
94151, Birmingham, AL 35220-4151. Website:
http://www.bham.net/bisfic.

A Personal and Far-Too-Short
History of Huntsville Fandom

Mike Kennedy

I was tempted to call this article "The Three Ages of
(Huntsville) Fandom but when I considered the analogy between the
three ages of man and the fact that Huntsville is now in its
"third age," I thought better of the idea. Nevertheless, it's
true that fandom in Huntsville, Alabama has come in three waves.
Since I am personally acquainted with only the "modern" era the
bulk of my ramblings will be on that, but the earlier ages
certainly deserve mention so here goes.

The earliest fandom in Huntsville was circa the early-to-mid
'60s. The most often noted aspect of this is DeepSouthCon 1 (or
MidSouthCon as it was actually known at the time), which graced
David Hulan's house in Huntsville in 1963, but this was actually
an outgrowth of the Southern Fandom Press Alliance, which in turn
was an outgrowth of the Southern Fandom Group.
(You can read more about
SFPA--which is still going strong--and
about DeepSouthCon history
elsewhere in this handbook.)

DeepSouthCon 4 (1966) was also in Huntsville (and by this time it
was actually called DeepSouthCon--that happened at DSC 2), having
come here because the chair, Lon Atkins, moved to Huntsville
after winning the vote at DSC 3. After this the recorded sources
available to me peter out of information about earliest
Huntsville fandom.

For the next era of Huntsville fandom, I have even less
information. When Nelda and I moved to Huntsville in January of
1978, there were indications that some activity had been
occurring--rumors of a recently-defunct Star
Trek-oriented organization for instance--but nothing was
happening that we could find. So all I really know is that there
was some fannish activity going on in the '70s, but that's about
it.

The modern era (if you will) of Huntsville fandom started in 1980
at yet another con called MidSouthCon. Andy Purcell, a dealer
living in south Tennessee, wanted to run a con and Huntsville was
the closest sizable town so he located it here--at the
now-defunct Sheraton Inn on University Drive. Nelda and I had
been to a few cons but were quite surprised to find out about a
convention in our still-new home town. Needless to say, we
attended. Some years before this, our earliest introduction to
anything approaching fandom had been though Nelda's son, Alan,
who was very into gaming and comic books. The comics aspect was
thoroughly covered in MidSouthCon's dealers room but we knew that
gaming was an up-and-coming interest among young con-goers and
sponsored a very informal game room at that con. Nelda and I had
been wondering for some time how to get some organized fandom
started in Huntsville and she came up with the bright idea of
posting a sign-up sheet in the con suite to get a list of names
of others so inclined.

So not long after that NASFA, the North Alabama Science Fiction
Association, had its first organizational meetings and by late
1980 or early 1981 club members were already talking about
starting our own annual convention. Many of us boned up on
details by working at other area cons, and in December 1981
ZerCon (short for Zero Con) was held at what was then the Kings
Inn. I'm convinced that this one-day party-cum-con still holds
the all-time record for the coldest video room. The one person at
the hotel who knew how to turn on the heat in the unused hotel
bar, where they were letting us use their large-screen TV, was
out of town that weekend and the sub-freezing temperatures
outside easily made their way inside.

Even while planning and executing ZerCon, the first
Con*Stellation was being plotted. The club had struggled to find
a permanent name for our con (going so far as looking through a
list of many hundreds of words with the letters "con" in them
supplied from an early electronic dictionary by Mark Paulk) and
was not particularly happy when Baltimore, after winning the bid
for the 1983 Worldcon, announced their con would be called
Constellation. Nonetheless, NASFA decided to retain the name
since Con*Stellation would be an annual event while Constellation
was a one-shot deal (albeit a big one-shot deal).

Through those first few years of Con*Stellation we also struggled
to find a permanent time of year for the convention. The first
one was a summer con (16-18 July 1982), while the second one was
a spring con (25-27 March 1983). It wasn't until plans for
Con*Stellation III were being laid that we settled on a fall date
(then October, now early November). Because of the
year-and-a-half long gap between Con*Stellation II and
Con*Stellation III, we conceived another December two-day
mini-con as an interim measure and held Con*Stellation II.V on
10-11 December 1983. For this con we probably hold the record for
the coldest "dealers room." We had no actual dealers room, but
one dealer showed up to sell out of his room while another--the
cold one--sold stuff out of the back of his van just outside the
con suite.

Two other Huntsville cons from around this same time certainly
deserve mention. NASFA hosted both DeepSouthCon 23 and
DeepSouthCon 25 (in the summers of 1985 and 1987 respectively).
DSC 23 attracted over 800 fans and DSC 25 neared 1000, making
them the most successful DSCs to that date (measured by the
admittedly limited yardstick of attendance). [See Part II for
more detail.--TKFW]

Coming to our collective senses after hosting so many cons in the
early- and mid-80s, NASFA has restricted its con-running
activities to our annual Con*Stellation. As I write this in late
November 1995, we have just hosted Con*Stellation XIV and are
deep into the planning for Con*Stellation XV. It looks like we
could go on forever (he says with an air of resignation). I'll
spare you the blow-by-blow description of all the
Con*Stellations, but you can check
out the attached table for some of the key info.

Of course NASFA fannish activities are not limited to
Con*Stellation, and Huntsville fannish activities are not limited
to NASFA.

NASFA is still active more than 15 years into its existence. We
have monthly club meetings (normally the third Saturday if anyone
out there is interested in dropping in) where we conduct
business, have a (usually sf-related) program and generally
socialize (most often including an after-the-meeting meeting at
someone's home). Other get-togethers include group movie-going,
picnics, holiday parties, and more. There's also
The NASFA Shuttle, the club
newsletter. Each monthly issue usually carries, besides club
news, convention reviews, a letter column, mini-reviews of
fanzines received, and general news of the sf/fantasy/fandom
world. For many people, the annual Worldcon issue of the Shuttle
is their first detailed news of that event. [Regular loccers
include Buck Coulson, Harry Warner, Jr. and Mike Glicksohn, all
first-class dudes.--TKFW]

There are other sf/fandom related groups active in the Huntsville
area, too. Gaming groups may predominate numerically (the group
names and the people have changed over the years), but there's
also an SCA shire, an active sf writers group (informally known
as the Huntsville Science Fiction Writers Group and Cake
Appreciation Society), and Star Trek fandom. All these groups
have been helpful time and again in helping at Con*Stellation,
plus the gaming and ST folks have sponsored their own
conventions.

Huntsvillians, and folks we claim as honorary Huntsvillians, have
also been active in wider fandom. P.L. Caruthers-Montgomery--who
fits in the latter category as a past editor of the
Shuttle even though she
never lived in Huntsville--was loaned the use of our bulk-mail
permit and our assistance to put out several issues of the
Southern Fandom Confederation Bulletin. G. Patrick Molloy, a
Huntsville resident since the early '80s, is also a long-time
officer of the SFC. Many other NASFAns and other Huntsvillians
have been and remain active as committee members and volunteers
at many cons throughout the Southeast. The largest single group
effort in this regard was at the 1986 Worldcon in Atlanta, when
NASFAns formed the core group running registration at the
convention. NASFA's involvement in SFC is threatening to expand,
as we are in the process of contacting Tom Feller (SFC president)
to volunteer Sam Smith's efforts as web-master for SFC.

Well, I've barely scratched the surface of the "modern era" of
Huntsville fandom, and have done even less for earlier eras, but
since I was asked for "500 words or so" and have written nearly
three times that many, I guess I'll stop.

Acknowledgements: Two articles were invaluable preparing this
treatise, both in the DSC 25 Program Book. I refer to G. Patrick
Molloy's "A History of Conventions in Huntsville" and Larry J.
Montgomery's "DeepSouthCon: How it Began."
[Reprinted above in Part
II--TKFW] Many thanks to those two gents and to all the
people who have helped me form good memories of Huntsville fandom.

TUSCALOOSA

Well, there was a fandom in Tuscaloosa, and may be again for all
I know. Back in the early '80s there was fairly
peripetetic group called SAM: The
Tuscaloosa Science Fiction and Fantasy Club. Active members
included Jerry McNight, Debbie Burden, Ward Smith, John Hedstrom,
Chanda Fehler, Richard Powell, and Sandra Paris. Other names I
see mentioned in their rather amusing clubzine include Mike &
Nelda Kennedy, Sue Thorn, and Alan Clark. They produced a mimeo'd
(ah, trufans!) newsletter called Asi
Achih ("and so it went" in a language found
only in Jack Vance's work) and at least 4 issues of a genzine
titled The Illustrated Fan.
They visited the Birmingham folks, attended conventions, went to
movies, ate pizza, and I have no idea what happened to the club
after 1981. Probably what usually befalls clubs in college towns:
everybody graduated and dispersed. In 1994 I ran into Thom
Brannon who had organized some sort of gaming convention down
there and wanted to do more, but after joining the SFPA waitlist
he wasn't heard from since. Asi achih.